That's the message being sent to HBO and "The Sopranos," courtesy of the Illinois-based American Italian Defense Association, which is expected to file a lawsuit today in Cook County, Ill., circuit court, charging that the gangster drama violates the Illinois constitution.

The group is not seeking damages or the cancellation of the show, said Enrico J. Mirabelli, a partner in the Chicago-based law firm of Nadler, Pritikin & Mirabelli, which is representing the anti-defamation group. Mirabelli said his client wants only for HBO to be found in violation of the state's constitution, period.

HBO, which had not seen a copy of the lawsuit at press time, declined comment.

The 100-member AIDA is facing HBO's parent company AOL-Time Warner, which owns Time magazine, Warner Bros. Studios and WB network.

The suit raises a First Amendment issue, pitting an ethnic group's desire not be subjected to negative images against a media company's right to free expression.

Michael Polelle, president of the AIDA, said anti-defamation groups have sent letters and protested to no avail.

"Average people . . . don't have a chance to respond to (media conglomerates) in an equal way, except in the courts," he said.

Polelle said "The Sopranos" series creator David Chase and his cowriters were in violation of the constitution for making "the Italian identity of these characters absolutely essential" to the show's vision of organized crime.

"It's the difference between putting a drunken Irishman on a show and saying (repeatedly) that all Irishmen are drunks," he said.

The suit is the first test of the Individual Dignity provision since 1977. In that case, an African-American resident of Peoria sued a department store for writing a racial slur on a return slip. The store was found to be in violation of the constitution but the plaintiff was not allowed to collect damages.

Nutley attorney Martin Picillo, an anti-defamation activist, said that as an Italian-American, he was happy about the AIDA's planned action. But as a lawyer, he feared the suit might open a First Amendment Pandora's Box.

"You could look at almost any production of fiction and say, 'Hey, that's negative to me,' whether you're black, white, Italian, German, whatever. How far can this go?"